As Steelcase, a leading global office furniture manufacturer based in Grand Rapids, Mich., completed integration of several strategic acquisitions within a four-year period, the company found itself with a number of new manufacturing and distribution centers. After a thorough analysis of the new network, Steelcase consolidated a number of its U.S. facilities to streamline operations, increase efficiencies and reduce costs.

While this move was good forthe company, it did create asignificant challenge for Dennis Carlson, Logistics Manager –Technical Services, North American Physical Distribution.

Utilization: Going Up

“As a result of the acquisitions and consolidations, the view I had of my forklift fleets became quite cloudy,” said Carlson. “I had new forklifts added to my fleet, while other trucks were moving from one facility to another. It wasn’t long before I realized that I needed to take steps to ensure I maintained a clear understanding of the number of trucks in my fleet, the conditions of those trucks, and most importantly, their utilization rates.”

It was at this point that Carlson knew that he needed to invest in a forklift fleet optimization system to meet the challenge. He chose to deploy Crown Equipment’sInfoLink® System to understand what was really going on with his forklift fleets. InfoLink, which is a part of the Crown Insite™

Productivity Suite, deliversactionable data from forklifts through content-rich dashboards

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Case Study: Steelcase

Steelcase Inc. helps create great experiences – wherever work happens. The global, publicly traded company offers a comprehensive portfolio of workplace furnishings, products and services inspired by nearly 100 years of insight gained serving the world’s leading organizations. Steelcase remains globally accessible through a network of channels, including 650 dealers.

that help fleet managers focus on real opportunities and avoid wasted time deciphering mounds of data.

“I had a feeling that I had more trucks than I needed in my fleet, but I did not have the facts to confirm my hunch,” said Carlson. “After speaking with Crown, I understood that InfoLink would give me the information I needed to make strategic decisions regarding my fleet. I hoped it would allow us to do some really progressive things with our operations.”

Steelcase tested InfoLink during a six-month period on 25 Crown forklifts at a single facility. Carlson was so pleased with how easily it integrated into his operations that he quickly expanded the use of InfoLink to include five facilities.

Case Study: Steelcase

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Crown SC sit-down counterbalanced forklift works in a Steelcase facility.

“The most valuable benefit of InfoLink was that it gave me real data to help me understand exactly what we were doing with our forklifts. The system gave me more than just power usage data; rather, we saw when our trucks were not moving. And the data showed that in many cases utilization was sporadic.”

Carlson leveraged his findings to drive an organizational focus toward maximizing the use of the company’s existing fleet. He also used the information to support recommendations on how Steelcase could change some of the processes in the facilities to help ensure the trucks were working all day.

Based on the implementation of these recommendations, the utilization rate for the forklifts in the five facilities outfitted with InfoLink has significantly increased from previously low numbers. Carlson has also been able to reduce the size of his fleet by 30 to 40 percent and eliminate much of his older fleet. While some of this success is attributable to the company’s consolidation efforts, Carlson does credit InfoLink for making much of that success possible.

“InfoLink gave us the insight we needed to take many of the steps required to better allocate and utilize our forklifts,” said Carlson. “For example, we noticed one of the facilities had a low utilization rate overall. This allowed us to move some of the trucks to another facility that needed extra trucks. Without the InfoLink data we probably would have purchased new trucks and the underutilized ones would have remained that way.”

Carlson said he is at the point now where Steelcase plant and facility management teams are starting to actively integrate the data presented by InfoLink into their planning. In fact, he is seeing a steady increase in the number of requests for reports generated by the fleet optimization system.

Case Study: Steelcase

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“Initially we focused on our high volume facilities. Based on the success of this first phase, we are now looking at the rest of our sites. We think there are dollars on the table in some of these sites that InfoLink will help us uncover,” said Carlson. “I can’t speak highly enough of the Crown team’s openness and willingness to continue to work with us to ensure we are realizing all of the benefits of InfoLink.”